


Limits

by pickleplum



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Gen, Major Character Injury, an alternate backstory for Hermann
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-12
Updated: 2014-01-12
Packaged: 2018-01-08 10:28:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1131557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pickleplum/pseuds/pickleplum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Marshal calls him a hero, but he certainly doesn’t feel like one, not trapped in this hospital bed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Limits

The Marshal calls him a hero, but he certainly doesn’t feel like one, not trapped in this hospital bed. All he had done was injure his co-pilot, cripple himself, and nearly destroy one of the few Jaegers ready for combat. His father flies in from overseeing his work building the new Jaeger base at Hong Kong and lambasts him for risking his mind in such a foolish way. 

“The doctors say you have permanent brain damage, Hermann, in addition to your crippled leg. Maybe this will teach you the value of defense and carefully weighing one’s options.”

The nurse chases the older man out of the room when she notices his heart rate soaring. “Time for a rest, Doctor,” she says kindly, patting his hands where they rest shaking on the hem of the starched white sheets.

+++++

The Jaeger is in midstride when his co-pilot’s mind suddenly flees the Drift into itself, chasing a R.A.B.I.T. The machine tips forward, Mark I gyros unable to maintain balance without both pilots. The two-hundred-foot fall will almost certainly kill both of them. 

There’s no choice.

He takes solo control as he should, as he’s trained to do, and the neural load slams into him like a physical force. He’s not strong enough or not fast enough to right them and the Jaeger staggers, their right leg jamming against the ground with the full weight of the arms and torso behind it. The knee and hip bolts shear under the load. The lower joint shatters as the Jaeger crumples to that side, falling across the broken limb. They brace themselves with their arms before slumping to the floor.

+++++

He wakes from the dream in a cold sweat, sheets twisted in his clenched fists, pain radiating from his scarred and nerve-damaged knee. The force feedback mechanisms had worked as designed, transmitting the Jaeger’s damage to his flesh. He’ll never be a pilot of any sort again, not after this injury.

He grits his teeth and refuses the opiates the doctors offer when they tell him any future Drift will place too much stress on him. He listens in silence to the news he will need aid to walk for the rest of his life and take daily medications for pain and to control seizures. He can bear this and for ten years he does, fighting in his own way alongside the machines he wanted to pilot.

+++++

After those ten years the Jaeger program and the Jaegers themselves are nearly dead, bled dry by gutless men like his father. Newton talks of nothing but a solo Drift with a kaiju brain. Solo Drifts kill or cripple or both, but the man will not listen. He is tempted to show Newton his scars and the bottle of anticonvulsants in his bathroom to convince him of the consequences. Embarrassment over his infirmity and the certainty the display will make no impact on Newton keeps him from doing so.

He finds Newton seizing on the floor, having gone through with his mad plan and miraculously having survived. 

The third and fourth kaiju in twenty-four hours emerge (where is the blasted fifth?) and Newton plans to Drift again, this time with a neural interface ‘way off the charts’. He simulates the stresses in his mind. Odds are good Newton will die. Newton will die and whatever information might be gained will be lost with him. He squares his shoulders.

“I’ll go with you,” he says, his voice betraying his nervousness. “That’s what the Jaeger pilots do. Share the neural load.”

He sees Newton’s world tilt on its axis.

The Drift’s bright blue has not changed as he feels himself blended with Newton as he had mixed with a co-pilot a decade earlier. They drop into the hive mind and find the secret key to the Breach. The Drift staggers to a halt as Newton frees himself from the Pons. Nausea overtakes him and his vision turns black and red around the edges. His leg throbs from running and reliving the accident. 

On the helicopter, Newt looks at him with a mixture of confusion and concern when he blacks out for a moment, the result of his first partial seizure in years.

Time is running out for them. For him.

He manages to stammer his instructions, finishing the last only with help from the ghost Drift with Newton. Hercules Hansen shoves them out of the way and he nearly falls. He feels a new nosebleed start, hot blood running over his upper lip. Black lines weave around his field of view. He needs to leave LOCCENT. He can’t be in the way, not with so much on the line.

He staggers out and into the hallway, leans on the cold wall, and then allows himself to slide down to the floor. His aching leg is nothing to the agony behind his eyes. He wraps his arms around his heaving chest and bows his head, blood still trickling from his nose.

The cheers from LOCCENT reach his ears. They’ve won.

He fights for air and to see through the red and black ribbons. He feels Newton’s hand warm on his face and hears the man’s voice pleading.

**Author's Note:**

> Written in answer to two prompts. [this one](http://pacificrimkink.livejournal.com/2747.html?thread=4568507#t4568507):  
> “Okay so I love the fics that have him crushed under a wall after a kaiju attack and the ones where he has MS and the ones where he was born with some sort of birth defect. They all add something different to the characterization and give his personality and actions a different context. So here's another possibility: What if it was the result of a bad drift? I can't get the idea out of my head after Raleigh said his left arm was shot. The idea that things going wrong in a drift can have a physical effect. Sorry this prompt lacks a kink. Unless backstory angst is a kink?” and [this one](http://pacificrimkink.livejournal.com/2747.html?thread=3325115#t3325115):  
> “Hermann was initially going to be a Jaeger pilot. He coded them, damn it, he ought to pilot them too. But he never manages to find someone he's drift compatible with, and after one spectacularly failed drift in particular (that causes the Jaeger to go haywire and injure his leg) Hermann's told he'll never be able to drift again without killing himself. He doesn't like it, but he accepts it and serves the Shatterdome in other ways. But then Newton decides he's going to drift with the kaiju again, and Hermann knows he can't let that happen - even if it kills him.”
> 
> Ummm ... yeah. This came together quickly. Sometimes it's very easy to beat up my favorite character and then kill him (maybe).
> 
> Music to set the mood: [Sleater-Kinney, _All Hands on the Bad One_ , Track 2, “Ironclad”](http://youtu.be/BsG3AuE7jlU)


End file.
